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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667754">nights like these</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/babylxxrry/pseuds/homeward_bound'>homeward_bound (babylxxrry)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Video Blogging RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Protectiveness, and immediately had to rectify the situation, author saw the clip from tonight of sykkuno crying on stream</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:03:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,167</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667754</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/babylxxrry/pseuds/homeward_bound</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>And then the lobby killed Sykkuno first. And again. And again. And Corpse hadn’t gotten mad, really, because it would be stupid to get mad over a game he’s not part of because the lobby keeps killing someone he cares deeply about first over and over, but he’s also never claimed to be smart. </p><p> </p><p>[or, corpse calls sykkuno after the stream]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Corpse Husband &amp; Sykkuno (Video Blogging RPF), Corpse Husband/Sykkuno (Video Blogging RPF)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1495</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>nights like these</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>well uh it is 4am for me here but i saw a clip of sykkuno crying on stream and, uh, kind of lost consciousness for 1h45m and emerged with this. [edit: clip link removed, you can prob still find it somewhere on yt if you look tho]</p><p>some notes:<br/>- i do ship corpsekkuno romantically, but this fic is just platonic interactions with deep affections bc we always need more of those. tagged with both the &amp; and / tags for ease of finding.<br/>- if you're any otv-associated person it's your choice if you continue reading, etc<br/>- fandom folks please don't break the fourth wall, don't link this to them, don't tag them, etc etc </p><p>ANYWAYS heres some h/c :"3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p>Corpse doesn’t usually take the time to watch his friends stream, really, but sometimes he’ll put them on in the background while he takes care of his own work. It’s a good way to feel a little less alone.</p>
  <p>Tonight, though, had felt different from the moment he’d tuned into Sykkuno’s stream. Sykkuno seemed a lot quieter than usual with his chat, which Corpse had suspected had to do with the Minecraft nuke clips that had been showing up on Youtube in the last few hours. He’s not sure exactly what happened there still, but he’d hoped that some good Among Us rounds would cheer Sykkuno up.</p>
  <p>And then the lobby killed him first. And again. And again. And Corpse hadn’t gotten mad, really, because it would be stupid to get mad over a game he’s not part of because the lobby keeps killing someone he cares deeply about first over and over, but he’s also never claimed to be smart.</p>
  <p>And it had been alright for a while. Sykkuno was doing his stupid pretend-to-be-imposter shit and Lud was enabling him and it’d been alright.</p>
  <p>It wasn’t hard to see Sykkuno spiraling, if Corpse really thinks about it. He doesn’t go the same way Corpse does -- he doesn’t get angry or aggressive or sullen, but he does go quiet for longer and longer stretches and Corpse thinks he can hear a tremble in his voice once or twice.</p>
  <p>It all comes to a head when Toast and Rae start yelling.</p>
  <p>Sykkuno apologizes. Corpse wants to hold him.</p>
  <p>Toast and Rae keep yelling.</p>
  <p>Sykkuno apologizes again, quieter. Corpse can almost see things fall apart piece by piece.</p>
  <p><em>I was just trying to make everyone laugh. </em>The shake in Sykkuno’s voice is soobvious and Corpse <em>aches </em>for him.</p>
  <p>The facecam turns off.</p>
  <p>Corpse loses his fucking mind.</p>
  <p>“What the <em>fuck</em>.” He’s in the streaming room. It has a bit of soundproofing, but it’s not like anyone in the apartment block gives a fuck about yelling. <em>“What the fuck.”</em></p>
  <p>He knows Toast and Rae were joking around, he does, he really does. He knows that’s just their dynamic. He knows they all care about each other, at the end of the day. He knows that. It doesn’t help settle his mind.</p>
  <p>The motion of unsheathing one of his knife and flinging it into the padded wall is almost unconscious. It hits with a solid thud and stays there. Fuck. Fuck this.</p>
  <p>He leaves the knife and sits back down heavily in his chair. Fuck. He needs to talk to Sykkuno. He needs to tell him how much he’s loved and appreciated and that he’s truly a funny dude. That he’s putting in so much work to be a good streamer and a good person and that people see that, that people appreciate it. He can’t call him out of the blue, and especially not while Sykkuno is still streaming.</p>
  <p>The facecam stays off and Corpse watches Lud and Tubbo follow Sykkuno into the specimen room. Sykkuno pulls up the simon says task and then just… doesn’t do it. His mouse goes still and Corpse just <em>knows</em> he’s crying. He knows Sykkuno’s crying and he can’t do anything about it and it’s <em>awful</em>. It’s so goddamn awful.</p>
  <p>&gt;&gt; <em>text me after you’re done streaming?</em></p>
  <p>He can’t let Sykkuno stay upset. He can’t. It would make him a horrible friend to not do anything, and he’s failed the people around him too many times to count. He can do this one thing for Sykkuno, if Sykkuno will let him.</p>
  <p>There’s no response, of course, but the facecam does come back on eventually. The rest of the stream is torturously long and Corpse swings between worried and angry and upset faster than he has in a long time.</p>
  <p>Sykkuno ends the stream quickly after the games end and Corpse itches to call him. He doesn’t, as a rule, call people without any forewarning, because he’d hate if someone did it to him, but god does he want to.</p>
  <p>&lt;&lt; <em>hi corpse ! </em></p>
  <p>&lt;&lt; <em>what’s up ?</em></p>
  <p>Corpse groans. <em>What’s up</em>, as if nothing is wrong. As if he weren’t just crying on stream. As if he didn’t just have a god-awful night even by an outsider’s standards. Goddamn Sykkuno.</p>
  <p>&gt;&gt; <em>i was watching your stream, i hope you’re okay</em></p>
  <p>&lt;&lt; <em>o oh yeah, things are okay. it’s been a long day, that’s all.</em></p>
  <p>A long day, indeed. Corpse can’t decide if he wants to shake Sykkuno until he realizes it’s okay to tell people he’s not okay or if he wants to wrap Sykkuno up in a blanket and protect him forever.</p>
  <p>&gt;&gt; <em>are you gonna get dinner like you said?</em></p>
  <p>&lt;&lt; <em>yeah ! i think brodin might be out atm, i’ll see if he can bring me back something.</em></p>
  <p>&gt;&gt; <em>are you doing anything after?</em></p>
  <p>&lt;&lt; <em>not really.. why ?</em></p>
  <p>&gt;&gt; <em>would it be alright if i called </em></p>
  <p>&lt;&lt; <em>y yeah ! did you want to talk about somethign ?</em></p>
  <p>&gt;&gt; <em>nothing specific, just want to cheer you up :)</em></p>
  <p>
    <em>&lt;&lt; that’s really nice of you, corpse. i’ll let you know when i’m ready :))</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>&gt;&gt; okk :)))</em>
  </p>
  <p>And now Corpse has nothing to do but wait. He takes a deep breath and counts to twenty before he lets it out. It won’t do Sykkuno any good if he’s still upset when they call, because the whole point is to <em>not </em>upset Sykkuno more.</p>
  <p>The text comes sooner than Corpse was expecting, maybe ten minutes or so later.</p>
  <p>&lt;&lt; <em>whenever !</em></p>
  <p>And Corpse’s hands don’t shake when he clicks into Sykkuno’s contact and hits the call button, he swears.</p>
  <p>It rings once, twice, and then,</p>
  <p>“Hi Corpse.” Sykkuno’s voice is raspy and quiet, maybe a little bit clogged still.</p>
  <p>“Hi Sykkuno,” Corpse says. “Are you… okay?”</p>
  <p>Sykkuno sighs. “Yeah, I mean. I guess. Like I said, it’s been a long day.”</p>
  <p>A pause.</p>
  <p>“It’s alright to say you’re not okay, you know?” Corpse doesn’t know where the therapist voice is coming from, but he’s not complaining. He can hear Sykkuno huff through the phone.</p>
  <p>“I guess. Um. I don’t know, Corpse. I really don’t.” There’s the sound of fabric against the phone mic.</p>
  <p>“Where are you right now?”</p>
  <p>“In… in my room? Why?” Sykkuno’s voice is a little more muffled, like there might be something between him and the phone. Corpse hopes he’s wrapped up in his blanket.</p>
  <p>“Are you in bed?”</p>
  <p>“Y-Yeah… why?”</p>
  <p>“Good. Did you eat?” Corpse paces out of the recording room and into his apartment’s little kitchen. He should eat. Maybe when he’s made sure Sykkuno is okay.</p>
  <p>“Not yet. I asked if Brodin could get me something, and he said he would on his way back.”</p>
  <p>“Good. Have you been drinking water?”</p>
  <p>Sykkuno’s voice is a little stronger when he says, “What is this, Among Us? Are you sus of me?”</p>
  <p>Corpse can’t help the snort he lets out. “No, no, I’m just trying to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”</p>
  <p>“Don’t worry about me, Corpse, I’ll be okay, I promise.”</p>
  <p>“What happened? With Minecraft and everything?” Corpse doesn’t really <em>need </em>to know, but if Sykkuno wants to talk about it, he wants to give him the space to.</p>
  <p>“Um. Toast nuked the server and we lost all of our stuff. Only to the last save file, but still. You know how that is. And I don’t know when you started watching my stream, but, uh, I kept dying first and then Toast and Rae told me to stop memeing.”</p>
  <p>“They yelled at you,” Corpse says softly, because he doesn’t know how else to say it. “You don’t like that.”</p>
  <p>There’s a pause and a weak laugh from Sykkuno. “Um. Yeah. They did. It was okay, though, they were just teasing. It’s part of the meme, you know?” His voice almost breaks on the end and Corpse wants to hold him so tight.</p>
  <p>“You were just trying to make everyone laugh.” Corpse isn’t sure what he’s doing now, parroting Sykkuno’s own words back at him, but he thinks he might be in a state of disbelief that, even now, Sykkuno is just glossing over how upset he must’ve been to turn his facecam off altogether for almost an entire round. “</p>
  <p>“That’s what I do,” Sykkuno says. “It’s kind of, um, my job.”</p>
  <p>“I would’ve protected you.” It’s the truth. It’s the only thing in Corpse’s head right now, and he needs to know that Sykkuno understands. “I would’ve protected you.”</p>
  <p>“Thanks, Corpse.”</p>
  <p>“And you’re funny, you know that, right? You make me laugh all the time.”</p>
  <p>“Corpse… what are you doing?”</p>
  <p>“I want you to understand how much I appreciate you in my life, Sykkuno, let me be sappy.”</p>
  <p>“O-Oh. I appreciate you a lot too. Thanks for laughing at my jokes even when they’re not funny.”</p>
  <p>“No, they’re always funny,” Corpse says, even though both he and Sykkuno know that’s not true. “I’m always laughing when I’m around you, you know?” He can imagine the way Sykkuno would hide his face hearing that. “I meant it when I said you raise my serotonin.”</p>
  <p>“Thanks, Corpse. It means a lot to hear that from you.”</p>
  <p>“Always, Sykkuno. <em>Literally </em>always, because I never fucking sleep.”</p>
  <p>“Yeah, you should do that more.” And Sykkuno sounds less like he’s about to cry, which Corpse counts as a win.</p>
  <p>“Yeah, yeah, says you. You know how it is.” Corpse knows both of them have incredibly inconsistent sleep schedules, though he’s almost sure Sykkuno gets far more sleep than he does. It’s not that that’s a particularly high bar, but all things considered it’s better than nothing.</p>
  <p>“Yep. I do.”</p>
  <p>There’s a minute of comfortable silence. It’s rare that Corpse can sit quietly on a call with someone, but Sykkuno is just the exception to everything Corpse thought he’d established with himself, isn’t he?</p>
  <p>“Do you have things to do tonight?” Sykkuno is the one to break the silence.</p>
  <p>“I have some emails to sort through, and I’ll see if I can find something to eat that won’t fuck my throat up. I was going to try and schedule some more lobbies for this week, but everything’s pretty up in the air right now.” Truth be told, Corpse likes playing with the Offline TV lobby the most of all the groups he’s been in, but from what it sounds like, this particular group might need some time off from the game. “What about you?”</p>
  <p>“Just dinner, and I think my editor sent some things to be reviewed before they’re posted. Lily invited me to watch something with her and the others, but I think I might, um, try to sleep earlier tonight.”</p>
  <p>“Good, you need the sleep. I’m proud of you, Sykkuno. I’m so proud of you.”</p>
  <p>“Wait, why?”</p>
  <p>“I just am. You’re such a good person and a good streamer and I’m just really proud of you.”</p>
  <p>He can hear Sykkuno’s startled laugh. Good.</p>
  <p>“Oh my god. Corpse, we’re not streaming, you don’t need to simp for me like that.”</p>
  <p>“We’re not streaming, Sykkuno, and I’m still simping for you. It means I mean what I say.”</p>
  <p>Sykkuno goes quiet for a moment, and Corpse wonders if he’s overstepped a line somewhere. He’s about to backtrack when Sykkuno clears his throat.</p>
  <p>“Um. Thank you, though. And I’m proud of you, too! The whole shooting to fame thing must’ve been a lot to handle.”</p>
  <p>“It was. But you know. One day at a time and all that.”</p>
  <p>“Mm, yep. One day at a time.”</p>
  <p>They lapse into another silence. Corpse sets his phone down on the counter and rummages around in his pantry to see if there might be any soup he can heat up. There’s a rustling from Sykkuno’s side of the line, the sound of a door opening, and a faint voice followed by a distant <em>thanks, Brodin</em>, from Sykkuno.</p>
  <p>“Food’s here?” Corpse asks when Sykkuno comes back to the phone.</p>
  <p>“Food’s here.”</p>
  <p>“I’ll let you go eat, then. Get some rest, alright?”</p>
  <p>“I will, I will. You too.”</p>
  <p>“Call me or text me if you need anything, okay? Whenever you want to, actually.” It’s a privilege Corpse hasn’t extended to anyone in a long time, and one that very few people have ever held  at all.</p>
  <p>“Okay. Thank you so much. For checking on me. For everything, I guess.”</p>
  <p>“Of course. Take care, Sykkuno.”</p>
  <p>“You too, Corpse.”</p>
  <p>Corpse waits for Sykkuno to hang up before he locks his phone. God, he loves Sykkuno so very much in so many ways. He hopes Sykkuno understands just how much he means to him, and how much it means that he’s given Sykkuno permission to contact him whenever he wants to. He knows Sykkuno won’t abuse it, that’s not how Sykkuno is, but he doesn’t know if Sykkuno <em>understands. </em>It’s okay. He’ll understand, someday.</p>
  <p>But for now, Corpse just texts him a picture of the jar of bisque he finds in the back of the cabinet with a smiley face and a heart, and Sykkuno texts back a picture of fries and chicken nuggets.</p>
  <p> </p>
  <p>-fin.</p>
  <p> </p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This fic has been converted for free using <a href="https://aoyeet.space">AOYeet!</a></p><p>----------------------<br/>edit: as i understand it watching sykkuno's stream today (afternoon of 11/22), the entire minecraft server ended up reset so that bit is inaccurate in-fic but yknow . this is all fiction ! so it's whatever lmao </p><p>thanks for reading !! i may write more for them in the future, we'll see where the muse goes haha<br/>comments and kudos keep me thriving :D</p><p>new: follow me on <a href="https://twitter.com/sykkrophilia">twitter</a>! please read my carrd before requesting to follow. 18+ only.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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